Varifrank

A Little Trip In Mr. Peabody's "Wayback" Machine

Take a step with me into the "wayback machine". Forget what you know about history and observe history in the past and how it effects you in the present.

We set the dial on the "wayback" machine to 1939.

Jan. 4 - In his annual message to Congress, the President calls for "all methods short of war" to defend the nation.

Jan. 23 - A Douglas DB-7 bomber crashes in California - A French national who was acting as the aircraft test pilot was at the controls is injured in the crash. The press discovers the administrations plans to sell advanced U.S. aircraft to England and France,which would be a violation of the current neutrality acts. The President responds to the negative press editorials and critiques that the U.S. frontier was "on the Rhine" and not here behind the Atlantic.

March 15 - Germany occupies Czechoslovakia in violation of the Munich agreement. A year earlier, Pime Minister if Great Britain is championed as a "man of peace" for going to Munich to seek peace with the German chancellor. His adversary, Winston Churchill is derided publically in the press and by members of government as being a "warmonger" for his abrasive speeches and in advocating the need to prepare for war.

March 17 - The President announces that he wants a revision of the Neutrality law to aid the democracies.

April 12- Charles Lindberg returns to United States after spending 4 years in Europe. At one point Lindberg considers moving to Berlin. Lindberg often speaks publically against U.S. intervention in war in Europe and has becoming a rallying force behind those increasingly known as the "isolationists". They are largely anti-semetic and sympathetic to Nazi Germany and to world fascism. Those forming the growing isolationist movement have among their members, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Press editorials applaud the effort of Lindberg to keep the country in peace by becoming an advocate for isolationism. In the previous year, Lindbergh has accepted the German Eagle from Hermann Goering, the Nazis' second in command. While some question Lindbergs patriotism, many people till admire Lindberg for his heroism.

May 1 - Cash-and-carry neutrality law has now expired, yet 72% approve discretionary embargo of aggressors.

June 29 - House approves the Vorys amendment to keep mandatory arms embargo but allow export of"implements of war" . Only 51% of the public approve, public opinion mixed and vacillating. The press editorials take on an increasingly sharp tone against his administration.

July 10 - Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes 12-11 to postpone neutrality revision, putting a stop to the presidents plans to increase shipments to european democracies.

August 1st. Minister Ribbentrop of Germany has begun meeting with Minister Molotov of Soviet Russia. It is believed by the Presidents intelligence service ( less than 25 people) that the intent of the visits is to sign a non-agression treaty. The presidents diplomatic officers in europe assure him that this cannot be true as Germany and Russia are diametrically opposed politically.

The gauges of the "wayback" machine stop. You read the dashboard dial. Today is August 2nd.
You are in Washington D.C.

You see the president of the United States of America. He is crippled with the effects of polio, a disease which in you time, no longer exists. In 1939, polio is a constant threat to the lives of children throught the world.

The country is in the midst of the worst economic depression in its history. While the presidents party is predominates in congress and in most statehouses, he faces a hostile press who is made up almost entirely of the opposition party.

The President rolls into his white house office to begin his day of work. In the mail, his secretary has brought to his attention a letter from the person thought by many as the smartest man in the world, Albert Einstein.

It is a letter detailing the facts of recent research into the new science of nuclear power. It is also a warning.

The warning is that the power that is possible to be generated from atomic power makes the possibility of a bomb of extraordinary strength a very likely possibility.

The warning is also that it appears that the Nazi regime of Germany is also working in atomic power. They have begun to lock up the key natural resources that can serve as stock for atomic power, such as uranium. czechlosovakia, recently overrun by germany is one of the worlds key sources of uranium.

Germany is also the worlds leader in advanced sciences. While his country is struggling in the depression, Germany is an economic powerhouse. While the president has managed to get many of the brightest minds of europe to re-settle in the United States, there are many, many more still in Germany and Europe.

He sits silently and stares at the letter, and thinks to himself....

The Nazis....... With access to the core power of the sun itself

He picks up the phone, he calls his chief of staff and ask him to assemble his cabinet for a meeting.

At the meeting, he reveal the contents of the letter. These men, all leaders of industry, the top of the very top of the leading classes of American society, sit ashen faced as the cold realization of what might happen when the Nazis accomplish the task of capturing the very power of the Sun.

Hitler has the means to accomplish this task.
Hilter has the motive to accomplish this task.
Hitler has the opportunity to accomplish this task.

By The presidents own estimation and that of all of the members of his staff and research teams, who have all concluded that it is inevitable that the Nazis under the madman Hitler, will create an atomic bomb.

And when they create it, they will most certainly use it.

He resolves to begin a crash program to catch up with the Nazis as fast as possible. His ecomonists tell him that it is hard to estimate the cost of a project like this, but as it turns out over the length of the war, he spends 5% of the countries GDP on this one project. It is estimated that the project takes enough resources and manpower that it has the effect of extending the war in europe by as much as 14 months.

And everyday he goes to bed hoping against hope that America accomplishes its goal before Germany does.

He dies in April 1945, America still well short of its goal of creating atomic weapons before Nazi Germany.

However, Nazi Germany is defeated in May 1945. After the defeat, a large international team of intelligence officers begins to scour the german countryside in search of atomic research and materials and personnel.

The new president is a former Senator from Missouri. While in the Senate, he investigated war profiteering. In one investigation, he discovered obscene amounts of money being spent on something called "Manhattan". At the time, He was asked by the President himself to "please not look into it any further".

Now that he is President, he is given a briefing to hear what "Manhattan" really is.

The concept of the weapon is staggering, the project to develop it is even more so. Event now in May 1945, its still unknown if it will all work, even though 20 Billion dollars have been spent on it. Entire towns have been created to house the amount of workers necessary to create the technology, and yet, not one bomb has been created, and whats worse, no one on the development staff can be exactly sure what the effect will be when the bomb is used. Dr. Oppenheimer estimates that the bomb will generate 5 kilotons of explosive force, while others guess that the weapon will possibly ignite the entire earth's atmosphere.

After 60 days of intense research by the intelligence services in newly occupied Germany, they have come to a rather stunning conclusion:

At no time were there any atomic weapons programs in Germany. Germany has done little research at all in the subject. While ballistic missles have been found that were theoretically capable of carrying an atomic weapon, while a submarine bound for Japan was found with a large amounf of uranium oxide on board, no actual atomic fissile material ever seems to have been created in Germany. To some it even appears that the lead Atomic scientist in Nazi Germany was quietly,secretly misleading the Nazis in their research.

The country has spent billions of dollars and diverted thousands of manhours in the effort to create something that turns out not to have been needed at all. The smartest man in the world has given his predecessor honest advice and he acted on it in good faith, it appears that it was actually completely and totally false.

Many things are found in Germany and Poland, Czeclosovakia, Hungary and Italy, the horrors of the Nazi regime are beyond unbelievable, beyond human comprehension, so much so that the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces orders an all out effort to document fully the deprivation of the Nazis. So appalled is General Eisenhower that is is quoted as saying " I am ashamed that my name is Eisenhower", in reflection of his families German heritage.

Yet, no "weapons of mass distruction" are ever found in Germany. Upon seeing the death and distruction and raw unhumanity of the Nazi regime, one could argue, that the true "WMD" was the Hitler regime itself.

The President is not the slightest bit upset that the Germans did not actually build a bomb, he like the rest of the world of 1945, is actually relieved. No recriminations have been brought against the President by the oppostion party of the press. The world knows and understands the simple fact that a genocidal madman has been removed from power and the forces of fascism who just a short time before were the leading political power in the world, has been destroyed.

You then return to the present in the "wayback" machine. You turn on the television to see James Carville and Michael Moore scream and rant about President Bush not finding any "weapons of mass distruction" and you just shake your head and laugh at the raw ignorance of these petty little men.

Epilogue
You sit and reflect on the world you saw in your trip and the world today. 21 days after your arrival in the "wayback" machine, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, two of the most diametrically opposed political powers will sign a non-agression treaty. This treaty partitions Poland into two sections, Russia is also given the countries of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in return for not opposing Nazi Germany.

The Ribbentop/Molotov Treaty makes WWII possible, Only one army in europe is big enough, powerful enough and in opposition to Nazism enough to hold off Hitler. Instead of stopping Hitler, Stalin joins him in his desire to expand.

In 30 days after your arrival, On September 1st, The Nazis invade from the west into Poland, the Soviets invade Poland from the east on the 17th. Mutual assistance treaties signed by the UK and France for Poland are invoked, although both countries are totally unprepared to assist Poland, as the invasion is complete in 27 days. They are however, in a "state of war". Less than a full generation after millions of men were killed in WWI, a new war in Europe is underway.

France now has the biggest and most modern Army of the free democracies. In 1940, it falls to the Nazis in 32 days. By the time America enters the war, the United Kingdom will have faced defeat against the Germans in France and Norway, with a stalemate in the Battle of Britain. The only winning battle by the allied forces in Africa is offset by the stunning losses soon to come in Asia.

World War Two, as it is later called, goes on to kill an estimated 52 million people world-wide. While the worlds Democracies where being threatened abroad, while our former allies in WWI were being bombed in their homes, America sits out the first two years of the war as it battles with the forces of isolationism at home. Celebrities and heros and noted statesmen abound in the isolationist movement, while getting a good deal of positive support from the press.

What did you learn from your visit to the past?

Even the worlds smartest people can make mistakes. BIG Mistakes.

Doing nothing in the face of an obvious threat only increases the theat.

Maintaining a democracy is hard. Just being a Democracy is no guarantee of success against tyranny.

Treaties with madman are not just a "waste of time", they can actually help get you killed.

Human Beings are capable of enormous evil.

Allies arent all they are cracked up to be.

The only time you can be absolutely sure your enemies have a WMD, is when its used against you.

We could have lost WWII, if the people in America hadn't first been convinced of the necessity to fight it.

Until the Japanese attacked, it wasnt entirely clear that they would be convinced to fight.

The job of President is not a place for men of nuance.

UPDATE: "Big Stephen Green- The blogging machine" has a parallel post up at Vodkapundit

A Little Trip In Mr. Peabody's "Wayback" Machine

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